In 2024, the surgeon general put out an Advisory about how parents’ mental health had become a crisis. I read the whole thing immediately and was pissed to find that his only advice was to do more self care, and learn more about mental health. No Dr. Fauci, I don’t want to do more things. I WANT TO DO LESS!

It’s always struck me how differently people can live. Some things that I thought every functioning adult human was supposed to do, some families just don’t do at all.1 And they are doing just fine! Similarly, there’s lots of habits I have that some of my friends are horrified about.2 So I wanted to write a not-so-serious post about all sorts of ways people are doing less.

Before we start: everyone has at least one thing that they hold sacred in their parenting. I care a lot about my kids having Cantonese exposure. Emeline cares about keeping her toddler sickness-free. When you get to your sacred subject in our list, you will be shocked at how other people are dropping the ball! It’s OK. Just move on to the next item. Each item is something that one of us or a real life friend actually does. We want to honor the wide spectrum of what different households can look like, and have fun doing it. :)

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Community events round up

It’s been half a year since we wrote a new post for this “monthly” newsletter! Drop the ball? I don’t even know where the ball is. Here’s some events we like:

• I’m hosting Mission families BBQ Sunday March 1st 3-6pm with some parent friends! Come through! We’ll have baby pen, toy trains, and giant bubbles. And meat & veggie burgers and hotdogs. The event is on rain or shine!

• Mission families also have a weekly playground playdate at Jose Coronado playground 10:30am-12:30pm

• Rec & Park has a dope mobile skateboarding and scootering event they do. Their helmets are a little big so if you are bringing a toddler you may want to bring your own helmet.

  • 451 Berry St in Mission Bay 10am-4pm Feb 28th

  • SOMA skate park 10am-4pm March 7th

  • Potrero Del Sol 10am-4pm March 14th

  • 900 Innes Ave in India Basin 10am-4pm March 21st

• Check out your local library events

• Concerts are back at the Bandshell in Golden Gate Park from March 1st. Which I guess means it’s almost Spring already!

How to drop the ball in all aspects of parenting life

For everything from managing family pictures to screen time, let’s see how different families do it — in MEME FORM.3 Let’s go!

PHOTOS

tired: Archival is an artform. Scrapbooking, Polaroids, saving up those Shutterfly credits.

wired: Sometimes remember to put photos in the family group chat. There’s twice as many photos of the first child than the other children.

inspired: JuSt UsE AI. Trying not to think too much of that dad that was banned from Google products for life for taking a pic of his kid’s crotch rash for the doctor.4 The Grandparent Deal is that access to the automatically-updated kids photo album is contingent upon NOT CRITICIZING OUR PARENTING BASED ON PHOTOS please and thank you.

HOLIDAYS

tired: Handmaking halloween costumes. Seasonal home decor (and requisite decor storage solutions).

wired: Panic buying stuff on Amazon last minute for the school holiday event the kids just reminded you about.

inspired: It’s March and the neighbors are wondering if they should call the cops to do a wellness check ‘cause your Christmas tree is still up and maybe you died. Don’t worry neighbors, it will be Christmas again soon.

GEAR

tired: Bought glass baby bottles after reading about the toxin-free first year of life. Hours of research to decide on the right carseat. So. Many. Spreadsheets.

wired: Cribbing off friends’ research to get product recommendations. Threw out your fav black spatula last year and regretted it.

inspired: If it’s not AT LEAST half price on FB marketplace, you don’t want it! Bought a second lot of used hotwheels ‘cause the kids were fighting over them and you’re not the goddamn sharing police. Oh yeah, and glass cups have gone extinct. You only have plastic now.

FOOD

tired: Organic, purees, no processed sugars, cooking every day. Bookmarked recipes for cakes secretly made out of vegetables for the kids’ birthdays.

wired: Meal prepping a couple times a week to save time. For some reason ads for those souper cube freezer trays keep popping up on the socials.

inspired: Frozen meal connoisseur. Sandwiches, box mac n cheese, ramen (microwaved with toppings ofc) are also in rotation. Breakfast is Eggo waffles eaten en route to school. Hey, not knowing how to cook doesn’t mean not knowing how to eat!

LAUNDRY

tired: Dirty laundry is sorted by color. The folding and sorting feels endless but it’s kinda meditative. Is this self-care?

wired: Saw a no-fold clothes system on Pinterest based on the Ikea Trofast bin and never looked back. Just sort and toss in!

inspired: All clothes are knits except for a few pieces hanging in the closet. Yup, some of the white clothes are a little pink now because of the red bedsheets5, but who has time for color sorting? Husband is wearing whatever socks he grabbed from the bin - one white, one black. He’s a rationalist, I guess.

LANGUAGE IMMERSION

tired: Strict with the kids about replying in the same language they’re spoken to. Trekking across the city for language-specific playdates. So many hand me downs from your friends that moved back home. (why are they leaving? this country is great!)

wired: Ranked all the language immersion schools nearby on the SFUSD lottery application. Why not? It’s free! Maybe you can take a free CCSF class and learn with them. (who are you kidding, you give up as soon as the kids complain about how bad your accent is)

inspired: Kids want to play iPad or watch TV? OK, but it’s in Spanish.

CLEANING

tired: Deep cleaning the house regularly like it’s the 70s. Giving your friends complexes when they visit by apologizing for the mess.

wired: Cleaning only when you psychologically cannot stand the mess, and then furiously tidying one room and hiding out in there to clear your mind. Explaining to your mom that having a messy house as a parent is progressive, actually.

inspired: Avoid getting sucked into tidying during the day by working out of the home. Friends find themselves compulsively Lysol wiping parts of your house when they visit. Win-win, right?!

SCREEN TIME

tired: Listening to the Anxious Generation audiobook during your commute. No screens for your kids. Trying to convince them to play hide and seek so you can find somewhere to lie tf down.

wired: Screen time settings limit kids’ access to videos on their tablet. When their video time is up they have a choice between Duolingo ABC, Endless Alphabet, and Teach Your Monster To Read.6 The one year old keeps trying to poke people in the eye and you had no idea why until you saw them playing Endless Numbers.

inspired: Turning on the TV when the kids wake you up on the weekend so you can crawl back into bed. The teacher compliments your kid’s numeracy skills and you don’t mention it’s because he watched so much Number Blocks. The kids have the iPad password memorized and the password is your phone number.

SCHEDULE

tired: Outside of childcare hours, all household adults spend all their time with the kids. Warning friends that actually having two kids is more than twice as hard as one. Gave all the hobby supplies away because what’s the point. :’(

wired: You’ve no idea what the kid activities are tonight because it’s your partner’s turn! Turns out you don’t have to be divorced to co-parent. Having side projects is great. Sure is hard to find time with your partner though…

inspired: Life is short. That’s what multitasking is for. Friend wants to hang out? Sure, they are invited to work with you at the coworking space! Or meet you at the playground after. Getting all chores done while you take care of the kids so that free time is all yours. Except when they make messes faster than you can clean. At least your Focusmate thinks it’s funny.

DISTRIBUTING CHORES

tired: One person in the household has a stricter standard for chores and … does all the chores. You got a cleaning robot and now it’s nagging you with push notifications.

wired: The law was laid down and the chores were distributed. Other family members are mostly doing their assigned tasks, given enough reminders. Partner swears to you that how good they are at remembering to do chores is not at all correlated with how much they love you.

inspired: Implementing the Fair Play system where adults in the household hold chore cards and are responsible for conception, execution, and planning. And if one person needs reminders to organize their time to get their chores done, the other person can provide those reminders a few times a week… in exchange for some chore cards. It’s still a struggle though and sometimes you’re pretty sure that the correct solution is to go back in time and marry someone else.

PERSONAL HYGIENE

tired: Everyone gets a bath every day.

wired: Babies don’t really get that dirty, you can get away with bathing them like once or twice a week.

inspired: Dry shampoo and mint gum are on Subscribe and Save so you can cosplay as a clean person

ILLNESSES

tired: You’re a pro at disinfecting techniques and tools. Doorknobs are covered with copper tape.

wired: Outdoor preschool so they don’t bring microbes home in the first place.

inspired: Just give up. With multiple kids going to school there’s probably only one week a month where no one in the family is sick. Taking random immune supplements to try to get a boost. Where are the scientists and startups on this??!?

DENTAL HYGIENE

tired: One of the few people in the world that knows how to floss a toddler

wired: Wait, flossing doesn’t reduce cavities? Good thing I haven’t been bothering.

inspired: The baby teeth are like, practice teeth, right?

Further Reading

• I am really loving Having It All by Corinne Low!! And not just because she cited my post about how modern parents are sleeping less. ;) It’s basically data-driven strategy coaching for women - explaining why you might feel shortchanged in everything from housework to promotions and examples of what you can do about it.

  • Corinne has a guest post on ParentData about how time with kids has increased: The culprits - breastfeeding, homework, travel, and play

• Amanda Montei on the pressure mothers feel to overfunction in the domestic sphere before doing anything else in public life

• Here’s a banger from Anne Helen Petersen exploring why women feel the need and expectation to clean more than men – and not just women with kids! 18-24 year old single women spend twice as much time on housework as men.

3

This is an old meme pioneered by Wired Magazine; here was their list in 1993:

[image courtesy of Pexels]

Meanwhile, brands have long responded to parents’ concerns by promoting the educational value of their products, with brands like Lovevery going as far as rebranding toys as tools to “grow your newborn’s brain.” Nevermind that there is no such thing as an inherently good toy. Children can express their creativity with all sorts of objects, from the cheapest plastic figurine to the fanciest wooden construction game. Electronic toys might have a reputation for tricking children into paying them attention, but reality is a lot more nuanced. For instance, children report preferring in person to online play, yet have fewer opportunities of the former.

Essays by parents facing these dilemmas often conclude with calls for slower, more mindful, consumption. Parents who have achieved such minimalism reflect on how children revel in toys that adults hate in part because those toys are disliked by their parents. Every take on toys seems to place responsibility on parents and to ignore that where some families struggle with excess, others still struggle to afford presents. What is missing from that picture? Am I really the only parents who love toys and trying on new ones?

A Community Response: Toys Library

What could a community-based approach to issues of toys waste and excess or lack of toys look like? Toys libraries are part of the answer. As a child, I was able to borrow everything from costumes and doll houses to karts and large outdoor games, for free. Toy libraries offer a space to play, a variety of toys to try, to enjoy for a while and then return - or to borrow again. They’re both vector for equality and provide children with a feeling of abundance and choice.

Toys libraries are common in many parts of the world, but seem to struggle to thrive in the Bay Area . The San Francisco’s Children’s Council has a free toy lending library, which is closed for maintenance since October 2025 - and is still close as of December 2025. The Habitot Museum’s toy lending library closed when they lost their physical space. You’d have to go across the Bay, the Oakland Public Library, to borrow toys from an actual library to take home.

Unfortunately, all these libraries focus on age 0-6. They don’t include board games, toys for older kids or costumes. Parents organize with toys swaps, giving and picking up toys on the neighborhood chat, or by making their own libraries. But the benefits of toys libraries extend beyond access to toys, just like the benefits of libraries extends beyond access to books and media. They are places to meet, learn together, organize play-focused events, for parents and caregivers to learn from playworkers about how to support play, and more. Maybe, they’d help us as parents reconnect with the joy of toys - without the stress of clutter or of giving too much.

In the mean time, try out Game Parlour or board games cafes and clubs with your toddlers and older kids!

Neighborhood events over the holidays

• Dec 15-Dec 24 at Union Square where 2 blocks are pedestrian-only: Winter walk! Light up penguins and other winter things, kid-friendly activities like toys and balloon art. You can check out Macy’s holiday window with the puppies and kittens up for adoption while you’re there.

• Saturday Dec 23, 10am at 850 Valencia Street: Carols, cookies, and hot chocolate!

• Saturday Dec 23, 10:30am at Glen Park Library: Toddler-made wrapping paper

• Saturday Dec 30, 10:30am at Glen Park Library: Toddler ball pit

• Monday Jan 1, 3-6pm at Hayes Valley Playground in the rainbow basketball court: Community skate party & resources roll-call! Skates available to borrow from toddler size 8 to adult size 9. This event happens every Monday!

There’s also story time at different libraries each day, every day except for Christmas day. And a reminder that the Botanical Garden and Japanese Tea Garden are free for SF residents if you need more places for your kids to run around until school/daycare starts back up. See also Family Swimming hours at the end of the letter!

Join the Joyful Parenting SF Meetup for more events.

Holidays family swimming hours at SF Public Pools - 12.26 to 01.06

Pools are closed on January 6th in the morning.

Balboa

• Tuesday 7-8am, 12.30-2pm, 2.30-4pm

• Wednesday 9-10.15am, 12.30-1.30pm, 2-3.30pm, 4-5.30pm

• Thursday 7-8.30am, 2.30-4pm

• Friday 8.30-10am, 2-3.30pm, 4-5pm

• Saturday 9-11am, 12.30-2pm, 2.30-3.30pm, 4-5pm

Coffman

• Tuesday 2-4pm

• Wednesday 3.30-5pm

• Thursday 11.30am-1.30pm

• Friday 2-3pm, 3.30-5pm

• Saturday 9-10.30am, 1-2pm, 2.15-3.45pm

Garfield

• Tuesday 2.30-4pm

• Wednesday 2.30-4pm

• Thursday 2.30-4pm

• Friday 2.30-3.30pm

• Saturday 12.15-2.15pm

Hamilton (shallow pool)

Closed

Martin Luther King Jr

• Tuesday 4-5.30pm

• Wednesday 4-5.30pm

• Thursday 4-5.30pm

• Friday 4-5.30pm

• Saturday 2-3:30pm

Mission 

Closed

North Beach

• Tuesday 2.15-3.15pm

• Wednesday 3.45-5pm 

• Thursday 2:00-3:30 pm

• Friday 3.45-5pm, 5.30-7pm

• Saturday 9-10.30am, 1-3pm

Rossi

• Tuesday 11:30 am -1:00 pm

• Wednesday 2-3.30pm

• Thursday 11:30 am - 1:00 pm

• Friday 2-3.30pm

• Saturday 12.30-2pm, 2.30-3.30pm

Sava

• Tuesday 3-5pm

• Wednesday 4-6pm

• Thursday 4-5pm

• Friday 4-7pm

• Saturday 9-11am, 11.30am-1pm, 1.30-3pm

See also our guide to family swimming - and passes for hotels’ pools and spas!

Happy Holidays!

Our friends at Mix Mix Press have released their beautiful map of San Francisco for families! Get yours!

Mix Mix Press’ Kid City SF map: https://www.mixmixpress.com/kidcitysf

Community Calendar

It’s summer! There are so many things to do. Here are a few we love.

Mothers artists:

• On July 5, catch the opening of Pissed-Off Moms, an art show by mothers about motherhood. In Dogpatch, 5pm.

Festivals:

• Ferry Fest at the Ferry building on July 13.

• Sunday Streets, multiple dates.

Recurring:

• Every year in the Summer, the San Francisco Public Library organizes Summer Stride, with lots of events and book giveaways designed to get families reading. If you read more than 20h over the Summer you get a great tote!

• Free art workshops at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Wednesdays 2-4pm. All ages.

• Tuesday-Friday is Bean Sprouts family day at the Botanical Garden!

• SFPL offers a great climate action events series

• The Friday kids shows at Yerba Buena Gardens

• Astronomers evenings at Presidio Park

Places:

• Nothing beats a day at the beach reading while kiddos build sand castles and fly kites. Our favs are: Crane Cove, Olympic Park, Baker beach, and just next to Sutro Baths (kiddos also love the caves!)

• Adventure Playground in Berkeley.

• Fairyland in Oakland is a short Bart ride away and open every day during the summer.

• Your local public pool to keep cool!

Catch:

• The San Francisco mime troupe

• Circus Bella

• Storytime band

Misc:

• Meet a Wikipedian, July 12

• Hiking by transit! The Bay Area has some of the most amazing parks, and we love hiking with our toddlers.

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Cool orgs to join or support

Read to the end for how to take action at the state and federal level too.

Kids Safe SF joins Streets for All

Kids Safe SF has helped bring about the new Sunset Dunes Park, the closure of JFK to cars, slow streets, and more. They’ve done tremendous work to make the city work better for families, and they’re now joining forces with Streets for All. Join their mailing list to get updates and get involved!

SF Kids Swim

SF Kids Swim campaigned last year to expand family swim hours during the weekdays and the availability of swimming classes. And with the help of lots of parents who wrote to Rec&Parks and their supervisor, it happened! Did you know that drowning is a leading cause of death for children in California? The American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending swimming classes, starting at 1 years old. Get involved by signing up for the newsletter. Disclosure: we were involved in the campaign.

SF Transit Riders

Children’s access to active and independent travel (i.e., walking, biking and transit) improves their well-being. SF Transit Riders organizes toddlers' favorite event: the Muni Heritage Weekend. They’re also behind many campaigns that have made the city more accessible and better connected. Join them!

SF Bike Coalition

SF Bike Coalition helps make streets safer, teaches to ride, and helps families get on bikes! And Bike Kitchen helps them keep their bikes in good shapes and are always super happy to teach kids.

Let's go electric!

Environmental justice is a key component for families to thrive. There are many organizations doing great work in this area! Bay Area 350 is one of them, focused on electrification, which you can join here.

Education for everyone

SF Parent Coalition is kind of like the mothership of all the parent teacher associations. They have a concise guide to the SF school lottery system, and run the SFUSD Families forum. It's a great place to ask questions, whether you're wondering about a specific school, or trying to figure out your kid's IEP. They also keep tabs on SFUSD board meetings to help make sure that parents' and students' needs are being heard and met.

The list goes on!

San Francisco libraries are awesome: we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. Their mobile outreach program is particularly amazing. And peep their Dungeons and Dragons afternoons for older kids! We also love pajama storytime and their commitment to offering children books as diverse in languages and representations as the children of San Francisco. Or did you know the Department of Early Childhood Education programs are improving K-12 performance?

Let’s Play SF was an initiative between Rec&Parks and SF Parks Alliance to build more play spaces for kids, which concluded this year. As SF Parks Alliance is being investigated for financial misconduct, it’s unclear who’s going to pick up the torch to improve our parks and public spaces for children. But we’re also grateful for the work accomplished through that initiative.

Have you ever wondered how we got these fantastic sculptures and whimsical yellow adirondack chairs on JFK drive? Or how night lighting art, from the Bay Bridge to Fulton Plaza, got there? These are a few of the projects of Illuminate SF.

We’ve highlighted before the work of community-centered businesses and organizations such as Natural Resources, Dogpatch Hub or Black Bird Bookstore for their support to families. We also could highlight the work of neighborhood-based organizations, such as the Bernal Heights Community Center, and the Neighborhood Centers Together. We chose in this newsletter organizations that were city-wide and with which we know parents have been able to engage. We would have loved to include organizations centered around family housing - but did not find much in this area. Let us know if you do!

We’re truly lucky to have a vibrant civic life in the city. And while these organizations are focused on local action, it can inspire beyond the city’s boundaries. If you’re searching for ways to get involved with politics at the state and national level with your spare scraps of time, you might be interested in 5calls and Chop Wood, Carry Water.

Thanks to a local mom’s petition, Mission Pool has extended family swim hours! Swimming and water play bring joy to many of us. With cold months approaching, the pool is a great way to spend family time. But where to swim and where to learn swimming is an evergreen topic on parents’ groups. We thought we’d recap what we’ve learned in our year of swimming with a baby and two toddlers!

Pool Cost and Warmth

There are nine public pools in San Francisco: Balboa, Coffman (Visitacion Valley), Garfield (Mission), Hamilton (Fillmore), Martin Luther King Jr (Bayview), Mission Community Pool, North Beach, Rossi (Richmond), Sava (West Portal). Prices as of June 2025 are $8 per adult ($6.90 if you buy a 10-pack pass) and $2 per kid for public pools.

All of the public pools are heated at 82F. North Beach has the only “warm” public swimming pool (set at 86F). Garfield, Sava and Balboa feel warmer to us, maybe due to renovation and large bay windows improving heat intake and retention. Hamilton is the only public pool with slides. Mission is the only outdoor pool and operates in the Summer and early Fall.

Some public pools have a small pool with stairs, which many families find more practical. This includes Balboa, Garfield, Hamilton and North Beach.

There are also private pools, such as YMCA, JCCSF and UCSF. While they primarily encourage memberships, it is typically possible to buy a day pass. Recent prices we’ve seen (as of June 2025) hover around $30 for those. Another option is hotel pool passes.

Family Swim hours

We keep an updated list of family swim hours automatically pulled from the SF Recreation & Parks Activity API at swim.joyfulparentingsf.com. Rec&Parks have been working towards offering family swim hours every weekday after 5pm in at least one pool, as well as opening pools to families on Saturdays and Sundays.

Swimming classes for the under 5

While SF Rec&Parks offer swimming classes, there are only three spots open to the public in each class, and they are gone within one minute of registration opening. 😱 And lifeguards cannot allow private lessons in public pools due to safety concerns. Many parents swear by La Petite Baleen (in San Francisco and San Bruno), but cost, distance and availability of weekend classes may be prohibitive. YMCA, JCCSF and AC Swim in San Rafael have swimming classes for toddlers, but they’re all very costly programs. Pomeroy is a more affordable hidden gem offering classes every couple months.

Now, toddlers don’t need swimming classes, and don’t believe Instagram videos: not all babies learn to swim in a month. And that’s alright. It’s easy for parents to teach the basics and help their child be comfortable in water. Key skills include going underwater, learning how to float on their back, entering the pool, but most importantly: having fun! Sing with your little one, use the pool’s balls (no outside toys at public swimming pools) and splash around.

More Public Pools Please!!!

San Francisco has only 1.1 public pool per 100 000 inhabitants. 🤯 The family swim hours have greatly improved, to take into account the needs of working families, thanks to the efforts of SF Kids Swim parents volunteers. But we can and should ask for more! Aside from being fun, robust swim facilities and education prevents drowning at all ages. If these hours don’t work for you, you can support Parks and Rec, write to your district supervisor, subscribe to SFKidsSwim newsletter for updates, and bring your little ones to public pools! Happy swimming :)

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[cover photo courtesy of stockvault]

Community events round-up

We started this newsletter because we believe kids need to be raised in strong communities placing the public good at the center of their work - public schools, libraries, parks and playgrounds, third spaces, museums. The ongoing coup is also an attack on these values.

What can we do? Some suggestions: call your representative, join a protest, volunteer with Food not Bombs, join or start your neighborhood mutual aid group, learn how you can help edit and protect Wikipedia. Here are more volunteer programs. Consider also joining a political club. There are many options in San Francisco, such as the Harvey Milk Club, Westside Families Democratic Club, or the League of Women Voters, as well as topic-specific advocacy groups and groups who share an ethnic background.

Our regular events below:

• Saturday parent circle at the Commons 10:30am-12:30pm

• Monday roller skating at Hayes Valley Playground 3-6pm

• As always, SFPL has a great rosters of free community events for families

• A reminder about the Children’s Council play date, and that we listed organizations offering recurring community events for families here and there

Birth stories

We were struck by this article about how women these days aren't familiar with common birth complications such as prolapse and other pelvic floor issues. Dr Jocelyn Fitzgerald, a urogynecologist, explains:

“We have this idea that birth is no big deal, everyone does it and it’s a natural thing your body was made to do. When it goes “wrong”, so to speak, women think they’re the only one and they don’t want to give the impression that their body couldn’t do it. [...] Postpartum incontinence happens to roughly 30% of women. Pain is probably the next biggest one.”

In other words, long term impairments due to birth injuries are extremely common. And yet, they are scarcely addressed in birth preparation classes or materials about maternal birth outcomes (which tend to only focus on deaths). Part of the reason, as is suggested in the interview, is that talking about them is perceived as scaremongering. Part of it likely is that there’s relatively little that can be done to prevent issues, which may give a sense of powerlessness that birth professionals would rather avoid conveying. Pelvic floor exercises and whole body workouts are already recommended in preparation for pregnancy and birth. But while they may improve outcomes, they won’t prevent the issues. Evidence on practices reducing tearing tends to be poor at best.

There are cultural differences in how pain meds are presented as impeding or facilitating birth and their impact on birth injuries. It’s common in France to place an epidural to let labor proceed for longer without active pushing so the vagina has more time to stretch. The social media wisdom about natural birth tends to say the contrary. It’s difficult to compare the impact of different interventions during births given all the factors at play, and understandable that we rely on individual stories that makes us feel good instead.

No such study seems to exist on how birth and its consequences are perceived in the longer run. We do know that birth injuries and trauma tend to negatively impact the their relationship with the baby. Many will also never recover fully from birth injuries, and the dearth of conversation and support likely impacts their parenthood journey.

Well, this is not very joyful. But we’re glad this issue is being addressed in the mainstream media and in recent research. Unfortunately, recent attempted cuts to medical research funding may set us back on this and other health topics.

So we read A Good Birth by Anne Lyerly. This book is about what makes women feel like they have had a good birth, based on a study of 100 women. And it's not about whether the birth happened at home or in hospital or whether it was vaginal or cesarean – women feel like they have a good birth when they have agency, personal security, connectedness with loved ones (feeling supported by and connected to friends and family and caregivers), respect, and knowledge (clear, timely, and accurate info about what is happening during birth, including potential interventions and their rationale).

Birth remains one of life's most profound transformations. We will remember about what it was like to give birth for years and years. Our wish is for all of us to go through the process with open eyes, together, rather than alone. We will leave the comments open in case you want to share about birth complications you or your loved ones have experienced.

Already convinced? See our FAQ

We're not cycling nerds. We love biking because, well, driving in a densely populated city can be really stressful! We love public transit and being able to spend quality time with our kids during commutes, but if you are trying to get from one neighborhood to another and not just to and from downtown, public transit can take a long time. On a bike, you get the best of both worlds - you can park right in front of your destination every time, and you’re not affected by transit delays or wait-times. And, when the car traffic is bumper to bumper, you just glide right on by! Kids love it, it’s good for your health, it's good for the planet, it's cheaper than a car, and it's plain old fun.

We both cycle 250 miles a month, minimum, on our family bikes. San Francisco has a solid and improving network of bike lanes (shout out to Kid Safe SF and Bicycle Coalition who are doing great work to make it happen). We’ve moved house with our cargo bikes. We’ve transported everything from knitting machines to the Christmas tree, to four kids for the school run. We credit them for being able to do as much as we do with our kiddos, keeping us in shape, and keeping ourselves sane: nothing like a bike commute to reset from the work day.

There are a bunch of practical issues to tackle before getting there though - and this is what this post was going to be about. We compiled all the questions we’ve received about how we make it work, what kind of bicycle to choose, what maintenance looks like, and how to keep it safe. This post got too long, so we decided to share our family bike stories and post a longer FAQ on the website.

Our family biking guide

E: We got our Urban Arrow about one month after birth. We had hesitated getting one for the previous year, thinking we could use transit for 6 months until using a bike seat. We took Muni 36 times in that first month, and it was fun, and also way harder than cycling.

We had a Craigslist-alert and got a hit within a week or so for $3000 with accessories. Popped in the car seat and we were on our way. We also got a long tail cargo (a Rad Wagon, for $600) about 15 months later, for the preschool commute, as the Urban Arrow was an older model with a weaker motor. We ended up replacing that motor, now using the Urban Arrow most, with the Rad Wagon being useful as a back-up solution during bike maintenance or if I forgot to charge the battery.

We also have a regular bike with initially a front child seat, and now a shotgun saddle, used mostly for short and fun Sunday rides. I had to drive for the school commute recently and can now say with certainty: that is far, far more stressful than cycling. And rain or shine, rush hour or not, the beach is a 30 minutes ride from the Mission.

R: We got our Urban Arrow a couple months before our 3rd child was born. Our 3 kids are just over 2 years apart, ages 5.5, 3.5, and 1.5 now. The bike was $6000 on Craigslist, just a few years old, with the extra strong motor and barely used. At first when I reached out to the seller, we weren't sure about such a big purchase, but then I borrowed Emeline's bike for a day and took the boys to Costco (6 months pregnant) and knew that I needed a bike like this.

We have never had a car (we rent one if we are going on a trip; our garage is too small for a minivan) and the bike was immediately a life changer, expanding our radius of what playgrounds we could easily visit and what friends we could see. Getting groceries was way easier with an e-bike than lugging kids and produce home on our wagon. And the bike made it much easier for me (getting more pregnant by the day) to transport and take care of the boys by myself.

This allowed us to maintain our regular schedule of me and my husband being able to have lots of time to ourselves while the other parent took care of all the kids. We've since purchased an additional Tern GSD (also barely used on Craigslist! For $3500) and hacked it to fit 3 kids, so that we have the option of either parent doing pick up and drop off.

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Community events

Bike related

• Freedom from training wheels, Sunday, March 23 @ 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm, is a place for children to try out and learn how to use bikes, scooters etc. Free, organized by the Bicycle coalition

• SF Critical Mass, March 28 @ 5.30pm (and every last Friday) is an organized bicycle tour of the city

• SF Bike Party, April 4 @ 7.30pm (and every first Friday) is a party on bike

• If you are in Noe Valley or surrounding neighborhood, ask to join the Noe Valley Dads group, which organizes regular dads bike rides

Regular Joyful Parenting programming

• Roller skating is every Monday 3-6pm in the Hayes Valley Playground rainbow basketball court. Local parents bring all sizes of used roller skates for people to borrow for free, starting from toddler size 8!

• Parent Circle is every Saturday from 10:30am-12:30pm at The Commons in Hayes Valley. Local high school students play with the kids while parents reflect on our week in community.

“Once my mom was gone, it was mostly just me and the baby all day long. Three, four, five days a week we walked to the Brooklyn Museum. Going to the museum was a way to saturate our endless hours with beauty. And in the frigid depths of winter, it was warmer than spending all our time in the park.”

Excerpt from Splinters by Leslie Jamison

Museums are a community treasure, both for practical and immaterial reasons. They are great destinations on rainy days, rich in stimuli of all kinds, third spaces. For young children, it’s a time to experience an indoor environment of a completely different scale than home1. For all of us, it’s a way to consider the world from a different place. I didn’t grow up visiting museums. I am so lucky they are an important part of my and my kiddo’s lives.

Without further due, our favorite museums and galleries as a family, and some tips about visiting them. One last note: this $300 membership gives you entrance to most of the museums below year round, with the exception of special exhibits.

SFMoma

SFMoma is the largest museum of modern and contemporary art in the area. Its first and second floors are free for all, and include a community room with kids books and armchairs. The first floor is usually home to a large installation that children particularly appreciate. In 2025, you can see Fortuna and the Immortality Garden, a mixed media, animated sculpture / environment. The second floor is home to a variety of permanent and temporary exhibitions, including a selection of impressionist, figurative artworks that typically speak to all. Grab a ticket and head to the fifth floor to see the oculus bridge (currently the site of a colorful installation by Eliasson). If you’re visiting before Fall 2025, don’t miss The Visitors on Floor 6. If you can, don’t miss Get in the Game, on view until February 18, another sure success with kids.

SFMoma has free family and community days. Passes are sometimes available on SFPL’s Discover and Go. Kids go free.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

YBCA is a smaller museum near SFMoma curating exhibitions of contemporary art, often from community facing art projects. Wednesdays and second Sundays are free for all, children always go free; adult tickets are normally $10. It’s right by the park, they love children, and children love them back. We highly recommend their Wednesday workshops.

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco: De Young and Legion of Honor

Situated respectively in Golden Gate Park and the Presidio, the De Young Museum and the Legion of Honor are a great way to spend an afternoon with art and with nature. De Young’s observation tower is a unique view of the city. Its sculpture garden is a joy for families. Their permanent exhibitions include figurative American art and crafts, and a large collection of African and South American art, the only one of its kind in the city as far as I know. Saturdays are free for Bay Area residents and often feature family crafts workshops. Note that their yearly family day, De Youngster, is insanely packed and I cannot recommend it.

The court of the Legion of Honor is another kids favorite. Its signature is a collection of ancient art, European paintings from the 14th century and classical fine arts. There are plenty of figurative paintings to observe and describe, but fewer family friendly spaces than in the other museums on this list.

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Asian Art Museum

As I was writing this newsletter, a mom on the neighborhood chat commented that the Asian Art Museum features an A+ escalator. I can only concur, but can not find pictures so you will have to go see it by yourself. It’s also the only comprehensive collection of historical and modern arts and crafts from Asia in the city, complemented by ambitious temporary exhibits. There’s often crafts activities for families, as well as a playground and the main SFPL branch across the street.

Kids 12 and under go free, and tickets are free or discounted on first sundays. Passes are sometimes available on SFPL’s Discover and Go.

Minnesota Street Project

Minnesota Street Project (MSP) in Dogpatch is home to many small galleries' regularly changing exhibitions, including the SF Arts Education project. There’s something for everyone. It’s free and in front of the Dogpatch Hub community space.

Museum of Craft and Design

Nearby, the Museum of Craft and Design hosts temporary exhibitions on design broadly conceived. It always has a corner offering crafts activities for kids. The exhibitions are fairly small and a visit will nicely fill an hour or two. MCD is also behind the MakeArt events often hosted by neighborhood library branches.

Kids under 12 go free, Wednesdays are pay-what-you-can, and adult tickets are just $10.

Institute for Contemporary Art SF

Having just moved Downtown, ICA SF is a great museum showing contemporary and often local art. They have a permanent corner with kids activities. Free for all.

East Bay: BAMPFA and OMCA

Both accessible with Bart, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and the Oakland Museum of California are worth regular visits. OMCA has two permanent galleries about the natural and cultural history of California with many kids-oriented displays and experiences, including a play area. Their temporary exhibitions are always thought-provoking and forward-thinking, and their permanent gallery of Californian art and crafts offers great insights into Californian culture.

BAMPFA hosts a cast of temporary exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. There’s a children's workshop. Don’t miss Making their mark, a great exhibition on women artists closing on April 20. Children and one caregiver go free.

Other Local Art and History Museums We Love

• Museum of the African Diaspora

• Chinese Historical Society of America Museum

• San Francisco Historical Society

• Lacis, Museum of Lace and Textiles

What about children and family museums? We’ve listed them here.

How do you nurture your and your children’s sense of wonder? Where do you find beauty? Let us know.

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Currently reading:

• Rachel Carson’s The Sense of Wonder, about sharing and nurturing wonder throughout life. "If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder", writes Carson, "he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in."

• Vivian Gornick’s Fierce Attachments, an incisive memoir about the famed critic’s mother and their relationship.

Our post about swimming is our second most popular post ever, but after half a year we were unable to keep up with updating our aggregated schedule on the bottom of that page. After scraping together some evenings and weekend hours we finally have our own automatically updated map!! Now when the kids want to swim, I just go here and see what pool near us is open. Even better — since our original post, SF Rec & Park has made it so that there is swim available every day of the week!

Just select a day of the week (for example “Tuesday”) and the map will show what hours the different pools are open for Family Swim or Parent Child Swim.

It uses the secret Rec & Park Activities API and our friends at SF Kids Swim have been helping us coordinate with SF Rec & Park to fix discrepancies we notice with the API data. We recommend joining their mailing list if you care about the city’s public pools!

And if you'd like more tips on the warmest pools etc check out our previous post! Our list of upcoming community events below the fold.

Community events

All of our regular events are posted on our Meetup!

• Community roller skating every Monday (except for school holidays and rain) at Hayes Valley Playground 3-6pm. Skates available to borrow for free from toddler size 8 on up!

• Kids+Parents Design Club at Sequoia Fabrica, the local kid-friendly makerspace in Potrero Hill every Wednesday 4:30-5:30pm ($15)

• Parent circle at The Commons kid-friendly coworking & event space. (Parents pool $20 each for high school students to babysit while we chat)

Special events

• Pajama storytime at Glen Park Library Wednesday December 4 7-7.30pm

• Holiday Tree Lighting in Golden Gate Park. Thursday December 5th 4-8pm

• Finger paint wrapping paper at Glen Park Library. Saturday December 7th 10:30am-12:30pm

• Saturday morning playtime at the Potrero library. Saturday December 7th, 11am-1pm

• The Ohlone Sisters at Glen Park Library. Saturday December 7th 11am-noon - The Ohlone Sisters are tribal members of the Costanoan Rumsen Carmel tribe and will share songs, storytelling, regalia, language, and special relationships from Ohlone culture.

• The Hayes Valley & Lower Haight Community Giveaway. Sunday December 8th 1-4pm at 733 Laguna St - The local Buy Nothing community is coming together for another joyful sidewalk event where our treasures find new homes. There's usually lots of kids stuff here! You can bring things to give away as well, but you must take any unadopted items back home.

• Lighted boat parade on the Marina! Friday December 13th 4-8pm. - Family fun and celebration for the Marina's 100th anniversary!

• Cargo bike Santa and mini train rides on the Great Highway on Saturday December 14 10am-1pm

• Birding for families. 10am-noon. January 11th at Herons Head Park, February 8th at Blue Heron Lake, and March 8th at Crissy Field. - Volunteers lead birding walks for kids age 4-12 with parental supervision. Field journals provided and binoculars loaned. Bring pencil, water, snacks!

• Wikipedia day. Saturday January 18th 10:30am-12:30pm. - Learn to get started editing Wikipedia at Sequoia Fabrica, the kid-friendly makerspace in Potrero Hill!

Holiday activities

• Visit the Gingerbread House at Fairmont hotel.

• Take the Holiday Train down the peninsula (thank you Caltrain!)

• Nutcracker Sweets. Weekend showings at Fort Mason - 50 minute dance rendition of the Nutcracker for families with small children

  Thanks for reading Joyful Parenting SF! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

I genuinely love being a part-time mom. This is a nuanced position. It's not that I don't want to be a mom. I love being a mom. At the same time, I am the happiest when I feel useful and good at something. Knowing myself, I'm a mediocre mom at best (and hey - the average mom is amazing so that's totally fine!), but I do strive to be a really good engineer. If the kids are awake 12 hours a day, and parents work full time, then just about half that time they are not being cared for by their parents. But I don't want to spend all my free time outside of work on kids either: I want to be civically engaged, work on side projects, and hang with my friends. And history is on my side. In fact, working moms today actually spend MORE time on focused childcare than stay at home moms 40 years ago (who averaged 30 hours a week (!!) on housework).  So expecting moms to center all or even most of their free time around their children is actually a very recent phenomenon.

Some things that I do to balance time with the kids with time for myself:

1. I split childcare with my husband. We both get two evenings a week to ourselves, plus a few hours on Saturday and half of Sunday. I've written previously about taking care of multiple kids at once.

2. I am all about unlicensed community childcare arrangements! Including: Parents taking care of each others’ kids, license-exempt child facilitation (for example, a group music lesson), or license-exempt institutions. I attend a Unitarian church with my kids, and I run a weekly parent circle where high school students provide playcare while parents chat.

What does joyful parenting mean to you? Feel free to email us with your ideas - we'd be happy to have more guest posts!

Community events and links

What we're reading

Our book of the month is All joy and no fun: the paradox of modern parenting ! Other community spaces and childcare arrangements that we've found inspiring:

• Communal multi-family living at the Radish house in Oakland

• "Child home" community centers in Nagi, a Japanese city where people have 3 kids on average, where you can drop off your kid and run errands

• Babysitting co-op in Portland where babysitters (who are also parents) get paid in babysitting vouchers

Regular events

All of our regular events are posted on our Meetup!

• Community roller skating every Monday (except for school holidays and rain) at Hayes Valley Playground 3-6pm. Skates available to borrow for free from toddler size 8 on up!

• Toy train hour at Sequoia Fabrica, the local kid-friendly makerspace in Potrero Hill every Wednesday 4:30-5:30pm ($15)

• Parents chat while kids play at Manny's cafe every Thursday 11:30-1:30pm

• Parent circle at The Commons kid-friendly coworking & event space. (Parents pool $20 each for high school students to babysit while we chat)

Halloween!

For the full list of streets that are closed to cars for safe trick-or-treating on Halloween day, check the Mission Local article.

Friday October 25th

• Scaregrove! 3-9pm at Sigmund Stern Grove. Carnival rides, games, food trucks, haunted places, arts & crafts, live entertainment, free bike parking.

Saturday October 26th

• Halloween stroll in daylight! 3-5pm on slow Sanchez St

• Hayes Valley trick or treat trail! Trick or treat 4-6pm at Miette. 5pm kids costume contest, 6pm pets costume contest, 6:30pm adults costume contest at Patricia's Green. Outdoor movie at Proxy 7pm.

• Excelsior Clubhouse Haunted House & Carnival! Carnival 5-7:30pm, haunted house 5-9:30pm, 163 London St. Tickets are one dollar.

• Minneslowta spooky stroll! 5-8pm, Minnesota street between 20th and 22nd Streets. Plus free jazz music! (event link)

Sunday October 27th

• Alamo scare! Trick or treat at the painted ladies. A Victorian block party. 4-6:30pm at the center lawn or Alamo Square Park. Children get medals of bravery from emperer Norton, and the Prescott Circus will be there.

• The Great Hauntway! 1-4pm, on the Great Highway between Judah and Taraval. Trick or treating, bounce houses, arts and crafts, and live music. And you can take a special spooky Muni L train there! (event link)

Thursday October 31st

• Cayuga trick-or-treating! 5:30-8pm, Cayuga Park to Geneva Ave & San Jose Ave to Alemany Blvd

• Shotwell Street Halloween! 5-9pm, Shotwell street from 19th street (including the fire station! they let the kids see inside the fire trucks) to 23rd street

• Fair Oaks Halloween! 5-8:30pm, Fair Oaks Street from 22nd to 25th. Fair Oaks neighbors go hard on the Halloween decorations!!

• Día de los Muertos + Halloween at SF’s Mission Community Market! 3-7pm, 22nd Street between Mission and Valencia (event link)

All the halloween flyers below !!

Community events!

Spotlight on: Muni Heritage Weekend, September 21-22 !

You’ll be able to experience transit at its finest from decades past…riding through the streets of San Francisco on vintage streetcars, your parents, grandparents, and even great grandparents rode (if they lived here). Heck, if they lived in several other places, for that matter.

And our regular events:

• Our Tuesdays Manny's meetup will be changing to Thursdays, starting in October. We're there from 11:30am-1:30pm with the kids play pen & toys. Kids play while parents chat.

• Roller skating is back from a short summer break! Every Monday 3-6pm in the Hayes Valley Playground rainbow basketball court. Local parents bring all sizes of used roller skates for people to borrow for free, starting from toddler size 8!

• Parent Circle is every Saturday from 10:30am-12:30pm at The Commons in Hayes Valley. Local high school students play with the kids while parents reflect on our week in community.

• We are doing a special barbecue Sunday Sept 29 3-8pm to meet other families in the Mission District! Join us. 🙂 Couples planning on starting a family in the mission are welcome too.

Public transit adventures!

Kids and teens love public transit. That’s great news for the environment! Coincidently, we read this piece about cultivating children’s awe in everyday life, and it’s transit month. So here are some thoughts about witnessing and encouraging our children’s awe for public transit and rediscovering it for ourselves.

We’re so lucky to have preserved cable cars and street cars in San Francisco. It’s easy to forget how magnificent the views are along those lines—or just how beautiful the Embarcadero is. Muni allows live tracking of the streetcars on this map, plus gives you a rundown of the streetcar’s history. And they’re so pretty! Plus, the Boat Tram is out until October 14, Sundays and Mondays, along the Embarcadero from 10.30 to 5.30. Try catching it in the middle of the line, as it’s often busy!

A Day’s Worth of Transit Adventure in San Francisco and on the Bay

Hop on a street car on Market Street. Take a ferry to Larkspur, Sausalito, Treasure Island (not much to do but it’s a short ride and they have a nice beach), Jack London… and back. Back on a Street car to Ghirardelli Square. Visit the boats of Hyde Street Pier (weekends only). Watch the cable car turntable, and walk to a later stop to avoid long lines! Hop off on Market and catch a bus or Bart home. Get all the pictures, grab fun food along the way and don’t forget your water bottle!

Bonus: Hop off the cable car to visit the Cable Car Museum in Chinatown, or off the street car to visit the small San Francisco Railway Museum at Embarcadero.

Hiking by transit

That leading research on awe is conducted in Berkeley might have something to do with the incredible Bay Area landscapes. Did you know many trailheads and campsites are accessible by transit? We love this map. More about hiking with young kids and supporting their awe for nature soon—but as a rule of thumb, I choose trails of 5 miles or under so my forest-schooled two year old can walk them independently.

The Tula toddler carrier can be handy to carry kids on your back (up to 40lb) when they get tired of walking, and more serious hikers with younger kids might prefer a specialized hiking carrier.

A Day Trip to Sacramento Train Museum

Leave around 7.30-8am to hop on Bart to Richmond. Transfer to Amtrak. The California State Train Museum is a short walk away from the station. If you can, go on a Friday to catch the toy train mechanic and the historical hardware store next door (10am-2pm). Visit the museum: it’s a historical roundhouse with one of the few working locomotive turntable! The upper floor is dedicated to toy trains and has a play area. Hop on the historical train along the Sacramento river. Visit Old Sacramento on the way back. Recommended: cowboy hat and boots, train engineer and conductor costumes! More trains on the way back!

A Half-Day at with Toy Trains at Bay Area Museums

Randall Museum is free and has miniature train sets and toy trains. You can bring your own trains to play on the tracks, or borrow a set for a few bucks. OMCA, the Bay Area Discovery Museum, and the Children’s Creativity Museum all have toy train areas. There’s also a model train museum in Richmond.

A Half-Day to Hop on Small Trains

They appear to all be in the East Bay! Fairyland is a short walk from Oakland and 19th street and has a cute pastel colored train for kids to ride. You can hike up to Tilden Park Steam Train from Orinda Bart, a 4 mile trail that begins near the station. It doesn’t have cover, so avoid hot days! The SF Zoo has a regular train, and Oakland Zoo is famous for its gondolas.

And more…

• An unofficial Bart documentary

• A South Bay loop itinerary to catch the Historical Railway Museum

• Fremont Pacific Bus museum

• Take the Hydrogen Fueled ferry at Pier 41 on the weekend!

• Take the ferry to Larkspur and hop on their shuttles to connect to the SMART train to Santa Rosa

• There aren’t enough train songs if you ask me. But here are a few: Little Red Caboose, Puff ‘n Toot, Choo choo train

• Train books for toddlers: Terrific trains, Freight Train, Quel train incroyable, Train Song, Trains Then and Now

Enjoy your public transit adventures!

First, some community events!

Community events round up

• Baby and Me Sewing at Sequoia Fabrica - Make a lovey with your baby in San Francisco's number one baby-friendly makerspace! They even provide baby carriers if you don't have one of your own to use while sewing.

• Work n play at Manny's café - Every Tuesday at 11:30am. The café has a kids area. Parents read, write, or just chat while kids play.

• Parents' Circle at The Commons - Every Saturday 10:30am-12:30pm. Weekly review & problem solving in community. Venue has a kids corner in the same room, and parents pool $20 each (bring as many kids as you want) for high school babysitters. Drop in anytime during the event.

• Note that All Ages Roller Skating at Hayes Valley Playground is on hold while the community center is closed. It will be back Monday September 9th! In the meanwhile, check out Last-Saturday Roller Skating at Koshland Park on August 31st from 6-9pm!

I also wanted to take a moment to highlight our two recently posted community spaces.

• Dogpatch Hub: A freshly renovated community space with SO many fun things for kids to play with! Open Tuesday to Friday from 10am - 7pm, and Saturdays from 11am - 4pm

• Aydea Cafe: Eat, caffeinate, and chat with a friend at this SOMA cafe with Tatar food and a kids play space! Open 9:30am to 2pm Tuesday to Friday, and noon to 5pm on Saturdays.

We don't have standing events at these but they have generous open hours and you should check them out with your kids!

The book we are thinking about this week is Optimal Motherhood and Other Lies Facebook Told Us ;)

Now, onto the main article…

My sleepless baby

My first child was born 5 weeks early – a planned C section due to vasa previa – and slept like a dream. We had no schedule and would give him naps whenever he started rubbing his eyes. Once, we took him to a house party and when it got to his bedtime in the evening he fell asleep. We put him in his carseat and he snoozed away through the music and everything.

My second child slept very lightly. Maybe it was because he was born on his due date. Even among babies born "at term", babies born later tend to sleep lighter – an effect that lasts through their first year. Indeed, his younger sister who was born 2 weeks early, sleeps just fine. But for him, after the first two weeks, we struggled. We tried everything to get him to sleep on his back – the thousand dollar smart bassinet, different methods of soothing – only to conclude that the only way he would sleep was on his belly. But every year, thousands of babies' lives are saved from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) because they sleep on their back. SIDS isn't the same as suffocation; the causes are still unknown.

I stressed over this. Rationally I knew that by sleeping baby on his belly we were only changing the risk of SIDS from 0.03% to 0.1%. But I loved my baby completely; any time I looked at him I was sure he was the cutest, bestest baby that ever existed1, and I knew that if he died, "well there was a one third chance that he would have died anyways whether or not you slept him on his belly" was just not going to make me feel any better. I posted on a parent community group asking – is SIDS really from belly sleeping? Or is it somehow mostly OK if I just make sure there's not any blankets and stuff in the crib? Some parents recommended an oxygen monitor alarm. Kelsey Piper wrote the most helpful comment:

This is something our family agonized over. Babies do sleep better on their belly. The risk of SIDS is probably elevated somewhat, but not very much - as you said, you can still avoid suffocation risks. And it feels like being deprived of deep/restful sleep in infancy might also be bad for a baby (and for the parents, who are unable to get a break). I think it'd be quite reasonable for someone to decide the best tradeoff given their values and priorities is to let their child sleep on their stomach…

My personal thinking is that I'll worry about SIDS only if there are other indications that elevate risk, such as the baby being premature, and during the months of peak risk (I think 2-4 months?) and otherwise I mostly won't make costly tradeoffs for small SIDS risk decreases. But this seems intensely personal and I don't have advice for anyone else besides that it is, actually, okay to balance SIDS risks against other considerations for your and your baby's health and wellbeing.

So we slept baby on his belly with an oxygen monitor alarm, and felt reassured that we had done what was best for our family – both to stay sane as parents (especially for our older toddler), and to minimize the risk of SIDS for baby as much as we could given the circumstances.

Ever since then I've been wondering – how much sleep have parents been losing from the back-to-sleep recommendation? How much parental sleep is lost per baby saved from SIDS? And how much harder is infant care now compared to 40 years ago? 3 years and another baby later, I'm sitting down to do the math.

42,500 hours of parental sleep lost per life saved

I am NOT telling you to disregard the American Pediatrics Association. Thousands of babies' lives are saved every year by their back-to-sleep recommendation alone. My hope is that parents can understand the risks and intentionally make the best decisions for their families, focusing on their goals and joys. After all, a life led by the avoidance of known risks is an unhappy one indeed.

Before we start, let's put some risks into context. The risk of death from SIDS is 0.1% for belly-sleeping babies, and 0.03% for back-sleeping babies. It peaks at 3 months and tapers off at around six months. Not counting birth defects, the second most likely cause of death of infants in the USA after SIDS is unintentional injury, which has a rate of 0.036% as of 2022. For reference, the likelihood of baby dying from a car accident in their first year is 0.003% (ten times less), and the likelihood of children dying from a car accident before they reach adulthood is about 0.06% (double the belly-sleeping SIDS rate but just over half of the back-sleeping SIDS rate). Now that we've conceptualized the size of the risk, let's get to the math:

First, how many more wake-ups do back-sleeping babies do? Kahn 1993 looked at 80 3-month-old babies. Half normally slept on their bellies and half on their backs. (This was right after the recommendation changed so not everyone had gotten the memo yet.) They found that 3 month old babies sleeping on their bellies get 16% more sleep, 40% less wakeups, and -- 43% shorter wakeups! Surprisingly, it didn't matter how the babies normally slept; they ALL slept better on their bellies.

For belly versus back, babies were aroused on average 7 times versus 12. (Not every arousal becomes a waking that requires help; most of the time they go back to sleep by themselves without caregiver help) Total time awake was 35 minutes versus SIXTY THREE. Yep, total time awake is nearly double when babies sleep on their back. Results were the same whether the babies were typically fed during their night wakings or not -- just under half of them were not fed when they woke up in the middle of the night, with "night" very reasonably defined as 9pm to 6am.2

Now to translate this into how much sleep parents are getting. A more recent study, Figueiredo 2017, found that 31 formula-fed babies (presumed to be sleeping on their backs in 2017) woke up 1.65 times per night on average. Assuming arousals lead to wake-ups requiring caregiver help at the same rate, I estimate belly sleepers would wake up 0.96 times.

I used formula-fed babies to do the calculation because back in the 90s only half of women EVER breastfed let alone breastfed exclusively. Given that the Kahn 1993 study was done in a research lab and the total awake time is so small (infants drink from the bottle faster than the breast), I would bet that any night time feedings were done with formula. Another point of evidence is that only about half of the 3 month old infants in the 1993 study required food at all from 9pm to 6pm, a rate that seems unlikely to me if they were being fed breast milk.

Figueiredo's 2017 study looked at 163 babies: 97 exclusively breastfed, 35 partially breastfed, and 31 exclusively formula fed. Looking at the data from when the babies were 3 months, exclusively breastfed babies had an higher average of 5.77 awakenings per 24 hour day versus 4.77 for exclusively formula fed. Their longest sleep of the day was also shorter: 5.27 hours versus 6.5. For the extra waking, half was attributed to the day, and half to the night. Based on another paper, Butte 1992, we can estimate that breast feeding increases average per-waking time from 20 minutes to 30 minutes for the baby, and based on Figueiredo 2017 the average number of night wakings goes from 1.65 to 2.19.

Adults usually take 10 minutes to fall asleep. Putting it all together: Our 1993 formula-fed belly-sleepers wake up 0.96 times per night and take 20 minutes to feed plus 10 minutes for the parent to go back to sleep. Our 2017 breastfed back-sleepers wake up 2.19 per night and take 30 minutes to feed plus 10 minutes for the parent to go back to sleep. So, we're looking at parents losing 29 minutes of sleep per night with the belly-sleeping formula fed baby, versus 87.5 minutes per night with the back-sleeping breastfed baby. This means that at three months old, parents of breastfed, back-sleeping 3 month old babies are waking up an hour more on average than their counterparts with babies who eat formula at night and sleep on their bellies. Of that extra hour, about 26 minutes is from breastfeeding and 34 is from the baby sleeping on their back instead of their belly.

This is for 3 month old babies. How long does this effect last? The breastfeeding differences go away at around 5-6 months, where the main modulating factor becomes parental presence at sleep onset (i.e. whether or not the baby is sleep trained). And based on Figueiredo 2017 the differences aren't really present at 2 weeks old, either - at that time breastfed babies wake up a little more often and spend a little more time sleeping. (My wouldn't-sleep-on-his-back baby actually slept great for the first 2 weeks.) So let's say breastfed babies wake up more than formula fed for only months 3 and 4. The difference between back and belly sleep also goes away at 5-6 months, so I will assume that lasts for only 2 months as well.

Over a two month period, that totals 26 hours lost parental sleep from breastfeeding and 34 hours lost sleep from back-sleeping, per baby. SIDS risk goes from 11 incidents per 10,000 babies to 3 incidents when parents sleep babies on their backs. So on average, about 1250 parents need to sleep their baby on their back to save one baby's life, totalling 42,500 hours of parental sleep lost per baby saved.

What's a parent to do?

Any parent would lose 34 hrs of sleep to save their baby's life. But these are averages. Some parents may have health conditions that mean they do worse on low sleep than others in a way that may harm the baby (epilepsy is an example). Some babies -- like my second -- don't sleep at all on their backs! Surely increasing the risk of SIDS from 0.03% to 0.1% is not as bad as not being able to sleep at all. Not counting birth defects and complications, the second most likely cause of death of infants in the USA after SIDS is unintentional injury.

Parents who choose to sleep their babies on their bellies (or who just want peace of mind – after all even on their backs babies still have 0.03% of dying from SIDS) and have $300 to spare might be able to reduce the risk. It seems to me that if a baby has a form of SIDS that is preventable by waking them up, (and if you, the parent, are easily woken up by an alarm), an alarmed oxygen monitor device would prevent it.3

Note though that it's not a good idea to switch your baby from back sleeping to belly sleeping if they can sleep on their back. Mitchell 1999 found that in New Zealand, SIDS risk is increased seven to eight times if a baby used to sleeping on their back is put to sleep on their belly, compared to if they had been sleeping on their belly all along. This may be because if they accidentally turn their head face down, they haven't had practice turning their face back to the side to breathe.

The other 26 hours of lost sleep are from breastfeeding. I breastfed all of my infants. But I actually regret breastfeeding my first two babies exclusively, and not just because it was a huge hassle when they refused the bottle as I returned to work. My husband loved bottle feeding the babies - without that, he explained to me that it felt like his role was reduced to being handed the baby only when the baby was crying and I had given up. When he fed the babies, he got to see them happy and calm and catch their sleepy reflex smiles.

After the first baby, I swore off pumping (cleaning the pump parts! ughhh), so bottle feeding meant formula. As far as I can tell, there's no benefit to exclusive breastfeeding when compared to partial breastfeeding. I don't mean to start a war, but based on sibling studies, it's also unclear to me if there are any long term benefits at all for breastfeeding in a developed country.4 Anyways, we gave our third baby one bottle of formula per day before bed and breastfed her the rest. When she started to complain about the bottle at 2 months old (when the sucking reflex became voluntary), we increased it to two bottles a day, which helped her accept it as a fact of life. As a bonus, family members and friends loved feeding her, too!

Finally, healthcare providers should give parents all of the information they need to make the best decisions for their families. For example it would be great for the American Pediatrics Association to say - if you HAVE to cosleep, here is how you can do it as safely as possible.

If parenting a newborn seems harder now than it did for your parents, know that it's not just the cultural factors mentioned in popular media, such as less family and community support. Babies literally wake up more than they used to!! My wish is for you to feel at peace with your parenting decisions so you can fully enjoy all the smart and cute and funny things that your kids do as they grow up. ♥

P.S. This post is based on my viral twitter thread. You can read the original here.

Events highlights

• It’s Pride Month! 510 families have a round up of all the family-friendly Pride events.

• Ruth is hosting a parents circle at the Commons on Saturday mornings - parents pool $20 for local highschoolers to babysit kids while parents chat.

What we’re up to

• We’re writing up newsletters about the Dogpatch Hub, camping and hiking with kids in the Bay Area, third spaces for teenagers, and resources for raising bilingual kids. We’re always open to new contributors!

• We’re reading Matrescence by Lucy Jones and Philosophical Baby by Alison Gopnik. These are not parenting advice books, but rather works exploring the beautiful and joyful transformations parents experience and what we can learn from our little ones.

• Baby+me sewing class!

On to links.

Event Series by City-Run Organizations and Partnerships

• The library hosts storytimes, crafts, play, and sports events. Children can also get their own library cards! The library offers access to lots of audiobooks and media for children.

• San Francisco’s Department of Early Childhood hosts many events in Family Resources Centers around the city, often bilingual.

• The Botanical Garden hosts family activities called Bean Sprouts Days. There’s also a Children’s Garden with a mud kitchen, sandbox… and the little ones love to visit the Japanese Tea Garden 

• Parks and Recreation hosts Early Childhood programs (see also Indoor play spaces and play times hours in our previous newsletter). They also run the Randall museum, which hosts community events and drop-in art and science events every Saturday afternoons, as well as classes (toddler carpentry anyone?) during the year. 

• SF children nature is a cross-organizations initiative listing nature-focused events around the city.

• San Francisco Park Alliance funds and organizes tons of family-friendly outdoor events.

More Family Classes and Events

We know that most events are happening during weekdays, preventing families with two working parents from participating. We’re highlighting both and noting which classes happen after work hours or on the weekend. Note that CCSF is very family friendly and hosts both family classes and helps parents who want to take a class either by providing childcare or being flexible with allowing to bring your kid.

Sports

• All Ages Roller Skating at Hayes Valley Playground - Every Monday (except school holidays) 3-6pm. Skates available to borrow for free toddler size 8 to adult size 9!

• Family swimming at your local public pool.

• Sports for kids with adults participation include dance (ODC dance), martial arts (see Barrios), gymnastics (see SF Gymnastics, Acrosports, Gymtowne), climbing (see Mission Cliff) and soccer (see SF Tots soccer). I assume toddlers can participate in nearly anything if appropriately supervised - ask the venue what a toddler participating safely would look like.

• I’ve taken my toddler to lots of community outdoor yoga and zumba classes! The UN plaza program is very kid-friendly, but I’m sure there are others. Outdoor classes are easier because if the toddler wants to leave, it’s easy to step out. There is also childcare at some YMCA locations through their Y Kids program. And some gyms have programs for parents (see for instance MOMfit).

Arts and Crafts

• There are tons of all ages art workshops around town. Ruth’s Table is a non-profit hosting intergenerational arts workshops on Wednesday afternoons and some weekends. SF Arts Ed offers classes regularly on Saturdays. Intergenerational Play Collective partners with different organizations to offer art and music classes. Scrap (a shop for second hand art supplies) hosts workshops usually open to all ages. YBCA hosts free art workshops open to all. The Museum of Craft and Design hosts MakeArt workshops all around town and in Dogpatch.

• Parks and Rec hosts Little People's Art Studio at various locations and Little Hands Creative Art at Eureka Valley Rec Center from Fall to Spring. Check the catalog when it comes out!

• In the Mission (requires payment), Precita Eye’s offers painting classes for toddlers and we loved the family ceramics series at Artillery AG (not yet a regular program).

Music and Performance

There are some community family programs in music and performances too! Not enough in our opinion, but we highlighted Small Art Music Projects. We love NoeMusic and MappSF (a bimonthly performances programs) is also super family friendly. And there are some theater shows for children, Rabbit Hole Theater hosts a monthly event for toddlers and the Creativity museum has regular children musicals. Shows by Circus Bella are generally free.

Also not to miss: SF Jazz Family matinees, SF Symphony family programs (they say from 5 but 2-years-old love them), and kids are welcome at SF ballet from age 3.

Nature and Science

We strongly believe kids thrive outside! Here are a few more organizations focused on helping the whole family enjoy the outdoors.

• SF Nature has an educational program. We did their birding class with a 20 month old and he loved it.

• SF Maritime (which includes the Maritime Museum, Hyde street pier…) has a junior ranger program!

• Mission science workshop hosts free community days. Stemful has drop-in hours for their community play space (requires payment). A note that Randall Museum, which we linked at the top of this newsletter, offers sciences programs on Saturday.

• There are drop-in community gardening days at Alemany Farm and In Chan Kaajal Garden. See also the Green City project for volunteering opportunities.

Parenting Support and Playgroups

• Children’s Council hosts a parents cafe and playgroup Tuesday.

• CCSF offers tons of classes for parents and children - as well as childcare for students. See Family offerings.

• Oogubi offers sensory/messy play playdates in Noe Valley and Mission Bay (requires payment).

What should we add to this list? Let us know!

Leave a comment

If Your Toddler Needs Motivation to Go Out

• If your kid is into sticker charts and the such, you could get an explorer map at a San Francisco Public Library Branch. Stickers! We’ve also heard of city parks passports.

• Our fav kids books about San Francisco: Boats on the Bay (picture book and board book), ABCs of Golden Gate Park, Last Stop on Market Street. Find all the things!

Community Play Spaces

We love San Francisco’s playgrounds. Sean Hewen made a beautiful map of all playgrounds, along with a passport to make sure you’ve visited them all. See also Playgrounds and pizzas. Since it’s summer a reminder there are three splash pads in San Francisco: Tunnel Tops, 24th & York Mini Park and Mission Playground. Community recreation centers are also fantastic resources: find yours and get involved! The Dogpatch Hub is a new “community living room” that we describe in more details here. It’s worth mentioning again family resource centers, the library Children’s Center, and the play space at New Resources.

Museums - for Kids but not Only!

Museums are developing lots of new, exciting exhibits focused on children all over the country. We’re lucky to have many kids-focused museums, which are free or low cost for families receiving EBT or Medical, and offer free tickets through Discover and Go.

• The Exploratorium and California Academy of Sciences are primarily focused on experimentation and natural sciences.

• The Creativity Museum and Bay Area Discovery Museum have more of a focus on crafts and play. 

• The Disney Museum is great for families.

• OMCA (in Oakland near Bart Lake Merritt) and Randall Museum (always free!) offer a mix of sciences and arts.

Generally, young kids love art museums: Stairs! Fun lights! Things to see! And museums have truly adapted to this. See also our longer post about museum-ing.

• There are permanent crafts station at ICA San Francisco and the Museum of Crafts and Design;

• There is a community room at SF MOMA for families who need a break, as well as family days and activities;

• De Young and Legion of Honour are unfortunately not parents-friendly: they hassle parents who breastfeed or feed bottles near galleries and they often refuse to provide a care tag for the bags of caregivers. De Young however has a wonderful sculpture garden where kids are much more welcome, an observation tower where you can see almost all of San Francisco, and it’s right next to the Botanical Garden and Japanese Tea Garden.

Amusement Park

A special note for Fairy Land, a beloved and very retro amusement park in Oakland with wonderfully painted wooden installations based on fairy tales. It features puppets and theaters.

For the Infrastructure Enthusiast Kiddos

Toddlers often can’t get enough of watching trains, boats, construction sites, buses and all the trucks. If you find yourself in that situation, here are suggestions.

• Cycle across the bridges: bikes, even cargo bikes, can board the ferry to Treasure Island. You can cycle and ferry bike the same way, or from Jack London. Golden Gate Bridge is even easier, and you can get to the Bay Area Discovery Museum in 10 minutes!

• Take the ferry to Sausalito to visit the Bay Area Model.

• There are two transit museums in San Francisco, one near Embarcadero (Railway Museum) and one near Chinatown (Cable Car Museum).

• Take Amtrak to the railroad museum.

• Sadly, children under nine are not allowed to visit Recology.

Not accessible by transit but…

• Adventure Playground enables children to build things with wood and saws and nails, and paint over structures, and generally experience the kind of risky play that helps development. Kids under 6 must always be supervised by their adults!

• Tilden train and the Golden Gate Live Steamers offer miniature train tours not too far from transit. We’ve previously hiked up there from Rockridge and Orinda.

Family Friendly Hikes

This deserves its own post! But do check out the urban hikes part of the Bay Area Ridge Trail, Angel Island, and Strawberry island.

Should we add something to this post? Let us know!

Leave a comment

This post focuses on babies, but we will follow up with one for toddlers.

ALL THE LINKS

For expecting parents

Meeting other expecting parents

This list is not exhaustive! Just things we or our friends have used.

• Natural resources, in the Mission, hosts facilitated classes and meetups for expecting parents (some free, some not) and has an indoor play space designed for young children. They also have a dads group.

• The Children’s Council hosts a free expecting parents and new parents group and a parent café.

• Several yoga studios host prenatal yoga classes (at time of writing: Yoga Flow, the Pad studios, Yoga Beach.

• The Peanut app aims to help moms meet.

• Joining your neighborhood parents mailing list or online groups: see sfparents.com. There are also chats without a public link, often on Whatsapp. The best is to ask another parent (don't be shy at the playground! :) ), or on the aforementioned public facing groups.

• The largest local parents group is Main Street Mamas. It also has subgroups by birth cohorts where you can meet parents expecting at the same time.

• More new parents support circles (require payment): Recess Collective, Early Childhood Matters.

Where to find all the baby things!

• The stores for baby stuff often mentioned on the moms groups include BuyBuyBaby, SproutSF, Aldea, and Natural Resources.

• Beyond the usual second hand options (Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, Nextdoor, your Buy Nothing Group), there are specialized websites such as GoodBuyGear.

• Do check out Chloe’s Closet (mostly clothes and toys) in Bernal Heights or Inner Sunset and Picky Monday near Presidio. Goodwill and Salvation Army also have children's clothes (they grow so fast!) but focus on older children. Goodwill has some used toys, too.

CPR and First Aid Class

Parenting classes may be offered by healthcare providers, and some employers provide access to additional online services. Children’s Council, a local community organization (the one that helps parents get the free or discounted childcare the family is under an income threshold) and Natural Resources have in-person CPR classes for parents.

Newborn baby (0-3 months) and older

The sleepy newborn stage is often the easiest age to take babies with you to do anything, anywhere, anytime! Just bring some formula or a nursing cover if you're shy about feeding in public. Enjoy!

Logistics

• There is a Bay Area Babywearing group that hosts occasional meetups where you can try different baby wraps and carriers to see what you like. If you're physically able, it can be nice to have your hands free and not have to lug around a stroller (see - public transit below!). Plus, babies tend to sleep longer when held.

  • We use: soft carriers like Boba Wraps until 3 months; structured carriers (enabling forward-facing carry) from 6 to 9 months (like Ergobaby, Mobi, Infantino); and Tula carriers until preschool.

• Some babies are picky about wanting their bottled milk warm; I've had luck with heating up the milk at home and keeping it hot with a reuseable heat pack and thermal bag. Others carry a thermos of boiling water to heat up the milk, for example this one from Tommee Tippee.

• Public transit with a stroller can be tricky. All of the underground Muni train stops are accessible, but only some of the overground ones. Bart stations all have elevators (but sometimes they are down for repairs). They have escalators too, but you're not supposed to use those with a stroller. The buses are the most reliably accessible, but can be tricky during rush hour. If it's not too busy and there's no wheelchairs, sometimes you can pull the seats up and use the wheelchair area. Otherwise, there is ONE seat on the bus with a stroller symbol that lifts out of the way to make room for you and your stroller.

  • If you are physically able, you may find that babywearing is the most convenient way to get around on public transit. For example, I find that I can get from 16th and Mission to the Ferry building in 15 minutes if I don't take the elevators, but waiting for elevators doubles that time to 30 minutes.

• San Francisco has a strong family biking culture – including parents using electric cargo bikes to transport newborn babies. Urban Arrow and Riese and Muller cargo bikes enable to safely attach a car seat. The San Francisco Family Biking group is a great place for asking questions and getting used gear.

Activities

• Having a group of parents with babies of similar age (or a little bit older) is incredibly useful. See the above parents’ groups, and join or start a meetup!

• Subscribe to the San Francisco Department of Early Childhood’s calendar, including bilingual playgroups and meetups for LGBT parents.

• You can take your baby to public pools ($8 for adults and $2 for kids - click through for our guide to family swimming and classes). La Petite Baleen classes are free for infants 2-5 months.

• Baby storytime at the library. Beware - at some of the indoor locations the number of people allowed at the event is limited (for fire safety reasons) and some caregivers show up early and wait in line to be able to get a spot. The outdoor locations are more forgiving for less organized parents.

• Baby+me yoga, baby+me classes more generally, are designed to support new parents. Then again, at that age babies are usually happy to be taken anywhere. We did so much sewing when our babies were little!

• Infant massage classes can be taken online or locally (currently Natural Resources hosts a regular workshop).

• Baby day at Alamo Drafthouse - baby-friendly movie screenings for adults! For all movies before 2pm on Tuesdays. They turn the lights up a bit and the sound down a bit, and baby crying is totally ok.

• Work n play at Manny's café - Every Tuesday at 11am (previously Thursday). The café has a kids play pen, toys, and baby bouncer. Parents read, write, or just chat while kids play.

Let us know in comments if you have additional recommendations:

Leave a comment

3-9 months and later

At this age, your child may get picky about how they take their naps, and not be quite as flexible. But there's still lots of resources you can take advantage of.

• Toy lending library. Also, see our appreciation post about toy libraries :)

• Children’s council playgroups on Tuesdays and their monthly sign language class.

• Music Classes! Music Together SF and SF Music Together have been recommended.

• Weekly parenting classes at CCSF Mission, or the daily playgroup/child observation class at CCSF Ocean Campus (it’s easier to attend and register on site)

• Project Commotion Gymfants classes

• Every two months, SAMP (Small Art Music Projects) hosts an afternoon to discover music instruments with your young child on a Sunday.

• See above!

Community Indoor Play Spaces

Also note that many rec centers have outdoor play spaces, too.

• Upper Noe Valley Rec Center - see the program schedule for "A Place To Play" for 0-5 year olds

• Eureka Valley Rec Center - not listed anywhere online, but their tots room is open 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. everyday that they are open (Tuesday to Saturday). You can call to confirm.

• Glen Canyon Rec center - see their schedule for "Tots Playtime."

• New Resources features a small play space with a small kitchen and toys where parents can meet during their opening hours.

Playgrounds with Astroturf

We love playgrounds with astroturf for babies to sit, roll, and crawl around in! This isn't a comprehensive list, just the ones we know and love. See the SF Rec and Park insta for new updates on fresh turf :)

• Balboa Park, turf redone in 2024

• Sierra Playground, turf redone in 2024

• Duboce Park Playground, turf redone in 2024. This playground has a bonus older kids area in the back with climbing structure and monkey bars with rubberized flooring.

• In Chan Kaajal Park (17th & Folsom). There's also a button-activated water fountain structure that older kids love, usually active May to October. And an exercise equipment area for adults.

• Susan Bierman Playground, turf redone in 2023

• Raymond Kimbell Playground (in Japantown). If your kids get bored here, there's ANOTHER playground right across Geary that's part of Hamilton Recreation Center.

That's it for now! Stay tuned for the next post in this series – all the links for toddlers! Have fun, and bring baby along! :)

Share Joyful Parenting SF

What we’re up to

• Reading When You Care by Elissa Strauss, a book inviting us to reevaluate how we think about care. Parenthood and care generally are too often represented as a burden; Strauss reminds us it’s a defining aspect of our species and necessary to our happiness.

• Organizing monthly creative support groups and a bookclub for Mothers in Art and Design.

Community events round up

Highlight: the new all-ages makerspace in Potrero Hill, Sequoia Fabrica, is having its grand opening this Saturday March 9th, from 11am to 2pm at 1736 18th Street! Sequoia Fabrica is a non-profit, volunteers-run, community workshop where children and people of all ages can learn and create alongside each other. Sequoia is designed to enable kids from a young age to learn alongside adults and each other how to build things - and offers classes as well as access to a woodshop, sewing studio, laser cutter, 3D printers and more. Several members have children (as young as six months!) and we'd love for you to come by and join us! Our dream is to make a place where both parents and kids can have hobbies. :)

Other events

• Parents work while kids play at Manny’s, Thursdays 11-1pm.

• Sequoia Fabrica is hosting crafts for families on March 9, 11-2pm.

• Community rollerskating on Monday afternoons in Hayes Valley, 3-6pm

• Intergenerational Zumbini (mini Zumba) at Mission Arts Center on Saturday April 13, 3-4.30pm.CCSF offers parenting classes five times a week. Just drop-in to enroll.

• Natural resources hosts play afternoons on Fridays 3.30-5pm. 

• Parks and rec has events for young children every day in various parts of the city. Notably (and not mentioned online!) Eureka Valley rec center has a toddler playroom that is open Tuesday to Saturday 9am-6pm. Good for a rainy day!

• Children’s Council playgroups are Tuesdays 10.45-11.45 at Dolores Park or online.

Join our Meetup group to get invitations to all our events!

Play time

When we are single parenting, we stick to fully enclosed playgrounds with gates. Most playgrounds fit this criteria with Dolores as the one glaring exception: The Hellen Diller playground there has two exits, and they are on different levels such that you can't see one exit from the other. We made this rule after one time when we were busy with the newborn, our 2 year old thought we had left the park and started walking home to find us. Luckily we were all wearing matching rainbow outfits and a kind couple spotted him as he got to the bottom of the hill on 19th street and found my husband who had run out to look for our kid. (Later we realized our 2 year old had a fever, which was probably why he was more easily confused than normal.)

Feeding multiple kids

I also have a habit of bringing around a lunch box of snacks, and sometimes sandwiches too if we are planning to stay out late. Here are some of my go to items

• Capri-sun juice (my favorite juicebox design! minimizes spills and easy not to drink air)

• Cheese string

• Strawberries

• Ham and cheese sandwich

• Peanut butter & Jelly sandwich

• Nutella sandwich

• Crunchy sesame rolls ("Imperial rolls" from costco)

• Mini snack packages like oreos, cheetos, goldfish, etc.

With a baby and older kids, in practice this looks like breast or bottle feeding the baby whenever she needs it, and using one hand to grab snacks for the older kids if they get hungry while you are feeding the baby. As baby gets older, I can give her bits of cheese string and berries and bread while the boys eat.

A note on bathrooms - sometimes it can be hard to go to a bathroom with multiple kids in tow. I used to carry a Oxo-tot fold up potty when we were potty training, but now I just carry around a few potty bags which my older kids - being boys - can pee in. I've seen other parents with special bottles that work for girls and boys in a pinch.

Sleep time with multiple kids

Our boys sleep in a room together in a bunk bed. Bedtime goes from about 7:30 to 8pm. Baby is put to bed before or after the boys depending on how tired she is. If we put her to bed after, she bounces in her jumper in the boys room while they get tucked in. Today I kept a baby mum mum in my hand and fed her bits of it whenever she squawked.

Tucking baby in

• Change diaper

• Sing a song

• Put her in bed and pat her for a few minutes

• "good night, i love you!"

At 2 months we did light sleep training with the baby for a week where we pat her to sleep in her crib instead of feeding or snuggling her to sleep, and now she knows the routine means it's time to sleep, and we can leave the room while she's still awake.

Tucking the boys in

• Read books

• Brush teeth - This is a best effort attempt. I am not actually brushing their teeth for 2 minutes.

• "tactical wee" or change diaper

• Sing song

• Scratch their backs one by one

• "good night, i love you"

Getting the boys to sleep in the same room (including getting them to have the same bedtime) was a big project, and we have our sleep coach Amanda to thank for helping us through that.

The hardest part

The hardest part of taking care of multiple kids is that if kids are upset, you have to triage and help them one at a time, and be OK with ignoring a little crying or whining sometimes. There's just one of you and so sometimes a kid has to wait a few minutes for comfort while you finish up something with another kid. And the best thing about taking care of multiple kids is hearing their funny conversations with each other, and seeing them play together and help each other out.

I hope this helps parents who are wondering about having multiple kids, or even just wondering about having drop-off playdates with their friends!

Until next time,

Ruth

[photo from the In Chan Kaajal community garden at 17th and Folsom, open to the public Saturdays 9-11am]

But first,

Free Community Events Round-up!

• Community rollerskating on Monday afternoons in Hayes Valley, 3-6pm

• Work and play at Manny’s for parents, Thursdays 11-1pm.

• Night of Ideas has a family program this year! An afternoon of arts at the Main Library, Saturday March 2, 4-6pm.

• Intergenerational singing at Mission Arts Center on Saturday March 2, 3-4.30pm.

• Sequoia Fabrica is hosting crafts for families on March 9, 11-2pm.

• Fort building and tunnels at Glen Park library on Saturday March 9, 10.30-12.30am.

• CCSF offers parenting classes five times a week. Just drop-in to enroll.

• Natural resources hosts play afternoons on Fridays 3.30-5pm. 

• Parks and rec has events for young children every day in various parts of the city.

• The magnolias are in bloom at the Botanical Garden! Go soon if you want to catch them.

• Bean Sprouts Family Days at the Botanical Garden are back on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

• Children’s Council playgroups are Tuesdays 10.45-11.45 at Dolores Park or online.

• Ruth’s table hosts an intergenerational crafts workshop on Wednesday 1-3pm.

Join our Meetup group to get invitations to all our events! Also, the hours on our family swimming page are current (until March 9), and we will update them as soon as spring hours are posted. Joyful splashing!

We Need a Village

Many parents feel lonely. Many people past thirty find it difficult to make new friends. It doesn’t have to be this way! We’ve built many strong, deep friendships since becoming parents. Taking a community-based approach to raising our kids has allowed us to share childcare responsibilities and to learn helpful parenting strategies. But above all, it created the invaluable village we always needed. 

Earlier this month, I was solo-parenting, my baby had a really bad night, and in the hazy morning I accidentally poured boiling water on my hand trying to make coffee. I called a friend, who took care of him for the day while I slept. Other friends made us dinner. Yet other friends brought the baby to and back from preschool the next day. Friends watched him on Saturday. Then another friend got me to leave him at her church daycare on Sunday. This is my village at work. I feel incredibly grateful, and wish we could all count on one.

Many Eyes Makes Child Rearing Easy

There’s been a lot of coverage recently on cooperative childcare. Instead of hiring help, parents and family, by blood or by choice, help each other raise children. For Romper, Elizabeth Doerr describes her Portland-based babysitting cooperative, where parents cash in and out childcare hours. For The Guardian, Adrienne Matei talked to parents building communities: organizers of baby happy hours in Vancouver and parents living in an intentional community in Oakland called Radish. Baby happy hours enable parents to meet and talk while children play, a formula we love too. Cooperative living goes even further and offers a vision of how our world could be: parents describe being always able to find someone to keep an eye on the baby monitor when they go out at night, and a supportive environment for their family with many eyes and hands during the day. For non-parents, it’s a chance to live near the wonderful creative energy of children before (or instead) becoming parents themselves, and a setting in which they will be similarly supported.

Caring for others makes us happier and healthier - as long as it does not take over our life. But we’ve found that it’s not that easy to get started with a more cooperative way of living. It’s hard to trust others to care for our kids, especially when they are little. It’s hard to believe we can take care of multiple kids when we already feel like we’re struggling with our own. Yet, in many ways, many kids are easier than one! They entertain each other, they’re happy to be together, you can’t stress about details, and then again: in turn, it gives you more free time to yourself.

Here are what we’ve found useful, why cooperative childcare may be especially hard in San Francisco. And we’d love to hear your own stories of cooperative childcare.

Playground Parents and Playdates

Have you ever looked after another kid at the playground to let their parents go to the restroom? That’s cooperative childcare! Have you helped look after a bunch of kids at one of our events? That’s cooperative childcare. From a very young age, we got our kids together for impromptu dinners, playdate afternoons or time at the playground. They may not play with each other, but they were still together. We became comfortable with their needs and habits, and they became comfortable with us. It requires little organization, and it gave us time to hang out with other adults.

Kids Swaps

Next, we did kids swap, first for a couple hours, and stretching to a day. I worked part time for months using baby-swaps as my childcare! It’s easier to live nearby, and requires parents to have similar needs and schedules, like being both on maternity leave or part time work with flexibility. It started with helping out during a medical appointment and a yoga class after meeting at a Joyful Parenting meetup, and it went so well we continued until one of the babies went to preschool.

The Cool Aunt

The cool aunt is in! That is, women who have no children on their own but are a supportive adult to youth in their blood and chosen families. A bit eccentric, she’s a darling of social media (and parents and kids). Now, we don’t like this term so much because we’d love to live in a society where cool uncle is as much a thing. Everyone would benefit if men did as much childcare as women. But you’d be surprised by how many people would love to spend more time with children and for a variety of reasons don’t have children themselves.

We have friends who decided they wanted to be part of our children’s lives. They take them on fun outings, hang out at the playground, or drop by for brunch and dinner or to play for a bit. They’re dear friends we know we can count on in case of emergency. And bonus: for children, having supportive adults in their life who are not family is a protective factor and fosters emotional health. It gives them someone else to talk to, more support when they need it. It also makes for happier parents, likely strengthening family relationships. And our friends expose our kids to so many languages! We’re so lucky to have them as part of our kids' village, and… all it took was asking.

Flats are Great: the Building Childcare

Living in a multi-units house and an apartment complex afforded us to live very near other families and casually get help, for 10 minutes or a day, share dinner duties once or twice a week, and find baby ibuprofen in the middle of the night. Kids also get to run in the corridor, drop by for play time by themselves. One of our babies started knocking all by himself on his friend’s door at 17 months! Whenever he wants to go play, he points at the door, goes down the stairs, knocks and even opens the door himself if invited in. Seeing your baby’s friendships blossom is a true blessing.

Even if friends live next door, it gets more complicated. Navigating the sidewalk autonomously is dangerous. This is why we love this architectural project by Open Workshop suggesting ways to build cooperative housing within traditional San Francisco single homes. But in the meantime, finding and fostering your neighborhood parents' community is incredibly helpful. First, you could join your online parents groups, and see if anyone is organizing regular playdates. You could check family events at your local recreation center, community garden and library. We suggested some events to join at the top of this newsletter!  And if you’re not finding events, how about starting one? It only requires posting on the mailing list and suggesting a time and a place. Parks and playgrounds, or cafes and beer gardens, make great meeting points.

You Need Time to Hang Out: Infrastructure for a Parent-Friendly Society

Infrastructure has a huge role to play in supporting a parent-friendly city. Building Joyful Parenting SF helped us a ton. It takes running into people regularly for these relationships to develop. We recently chatted with the founder of Recess Collective, a community play space that unfortunately closed during the pandemic - though they are still hosting wonderful events at Black Bird bookstore. It was inspiring to see how they supported parents by enabling children to play autonomously. On the other side of the Bay (but just a BART ride away), Parents’ Nook offers facilitated play spaces at OMCA. Elsewhere, family cafes (Eltern-kind cafes in Germany, Café des Enfants in France) and beer gardens with play structures completely change the equation.

While San Francisco has some amazing infrastructure for families, it still lacks intergenerational spaces. We’ve also heard many times that cooperative childcare is hard to build, because it’s much easier to rely on paid help - even though it doesn’t bring the same friendships and sense of community. We can do better! It’s a big reason we’re helping to build Sequoia Fabrica: we want a space that meets both parents and kids needs, where they can drop in, that is part of the local community (because everyone benefits to be near kids!) and builds the ties that help us thrive.

How about you? How do you find and sustain your community? Tell us, and let us know how we can help.

Going Further

• Hunt, Gather, Parent is a book about ways of parenting in collaboration with your kids. It makes it sounds a little easier than it can be, but is still a great resource with lots of strategies.

• Cooperative childcare is nothing new and is a cornerstone of materialist feminism. From the 1800s, there has been experiments to include cooperative childcare in housing projects, like the French Familistère. The Grand Domestic Revolution discusses how a community approach to care has been implemented in the past, and how it helped women thrive.

• Speaking of cooperative housing, Saint Francis is a fascinating example of permanently affordable, cooperative housing built by a union.

56% of parents thought kids wanted more time with parents, or for parents to spend less time at work. But in reality, only 10% of kids wanted more time with mom, and 16% with dad. More than twice that — 34% — wished that mom would be "less stressed and tired", and same for dads at 28%. It's a good reminder to make sure that I'm all together before putting in extra sacrifice for my kids, and that time with kids is really about quality, not quantity.

— Ruth

In other Joyful Parenting news:

Resources for applying to public school

Transitional Kindergarten? Lottery system?? I’m applying for my 4-year-old this year and will use:

• Zoom Lunch & Learn TOMORROW (Thurs October 12) at noon

• Written how-to guide courtesy of SF Parent Coalition

Ongoing Events

• Intergenerational Play Cooperative is back! Events happen about once a month at Mission Arts Center on Saturdays, 3-4:30pm. The next one is for music making!

• Thursday work and play at Manny’s, 11am-1pm: The café has a kids area. Parents come to read, write, or just to chat while kids play.

• Monday evening meetups at The Commons in Hayes Valley! The space has a kids corner with toys and toddler jungle gym. Adults hang while kids play.

  • Can’t make the event but want to check out the space? The Commons is open to the public every Sunday from 10am-10pm.

For more joyful parenting events and content, follow us on Meetup.com, Twitter, or Instagram

[thumbnail image by Direct Media via FreeRangeStock.com]

The newsletter will be sent monthly (parenting duties permitting) and includes upcoming events, personal joyful parenting moments, essays, or guides related to community infrastructure for parenting in San Francisco. Welcome to send requests or things you'd like us to share out to joyfulparentingsf@substack.com.

Upcoming events

Join our Meetup group to stay posted on events: https://www.meetup.com/joyful-parenting-sf/

• SF Preschool Night: A family-friendly preschool fair on Thursday, September 28 from 6:00-8:00pm at St. Paul’s (1690 Church Street). Organized by Gabriella of Primeros Pasos Preschool. See the website for a list of preschools who will be in attendance. sfpreschoolnight.com

• Parent & Kid hang at the SF Commons every Monday, 4-7pm. The space has a kids corner with toys and toddler jungle gym. Adults hang while kids play.

• Work & Play at Manny's (16th & Valencia) every Thursday 11am-1pm. The café has a kids area. Parents read, write, or just chat while kids play

Working moms

Do working moms now really spend as much time on childcare as stay-at-home moms did 40 years ago? I read Changing Rhythms of American Family Life — a fascinating deep dive into time diary data — to find out. The answer, oddly, is YES. Feeling overwhelmed, yet still worried you're not doing enough? It's not you -- the data shows that parenting standards have changed drastically over the last few decades.

I was investigating this claim from Bryan Caplan’s Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. Here’s the quote:

Back in 1965, when the typical mom was a housewife, she spent ten hours a week specifically focusing on her children’s needs. By 2000, this number had risen to thirteen hours a week. This happened despite the fact that today’s moms are much more likely to work outside the home, despite the fact that moms have fewer kids, and despite the fact that dads are a lot more helpful. Everything suggests that modern moms would put in fewer hours than ever—except the facts.

One pattern hasn’t changed: Stay-at-home moms spend more time with their kids than working moms. However, both kinds of moms try harder than they used to. Stay-at-home moms went from about eleven hours per week in 1975 to seventeen hours per week in 2000. Working moms went from six hours per week in 1975 to eleven hours per week in 2000. Modern working moms spend as much time caring for their kids as stay-at-home moms did thirty years ago.

— Caplan, Bryan. Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids (p. 20). Basic Books. Kindle Edition. 2011.

Caplan correctly portrays the data from Changing Rhythms. Working moms spend as much time on focused childcare (10.6 hours per week) in 2000 as stay at home moms did in 1975 (10.7 hours per week). This only counts time when childcare is the primary activity. That is, if you are cooking while keeping an eye on the kids, it doesn’t count as focused childcare.

Many more moms are working now than before, though moms are more likely to be part time than dads. Looking at mothers with at least one child less than 18 years old at home:

1975 - 56.1% of mothers were employed, and all moms worked 606hrs/yr on average

2000 - 78.1% of mothers employed, and all moms worked 1172hrs/yr on average

Interestingly, between those years, the amount of time spent on childcare dipped until 1985, as the baby boom wrapped up and people had less children per family, before rising again.

(Note that this chart has a higher numbers for childcare hours because it averages working and non working parents)

Mothers work more AND do more childcare… what did they give up on?

Where's the time coming from? Turns out what women give up when pressed for time is: HOUSEWORK! The amount of housework done by married mothers -- a staggering 34.5 hours a week in 1965 -- has converged down to 19.4 hrs/wk, about the amount of housework that single moms do (16.8 hrs/wk). Other than housework, time spent with spouse and civic participation are other areas where working moms spend less time in 2000 compared to 1975. Were spousal relationships better in the 60s and 70s? Who knows. My marriage is definitely in better shape when I can afford to spend one on one time with my spouse regularly.

The decline in civic participation has been well documented by Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone:

The frequency of virtually every form of community involvement measured in the Roper polls declined significantly, from the most common—petition signing—to the least common—running for office. Americans are playing virtually every aspect of the civic game less frequently today than we did two decades ago.

It’s unclear how much of that decline is attributable to mothers working more while also doing more childcare.

Mothers multitask harder

Are people also multitasking more so that they can work while maintaining the same amount of childcare hours? Yes: The time diary data recorded both "primary" and "secondary" activities to gauge multitasking. Multitasking across all parents has increased since 1975.

Men and women recorded the same hours multitasking but women are more likely to report FEELING that they are multitasking most of the time, which the authors speculated could be because "mothers move faster" (get more done) or that they are underreporting secondary activities.

Why more focused childcare?

Modern children suck up more childcare time now for a variety of reasons:

• There is “increased cultural and normative pressure to provide large amounts of time to children to be considered good parents”. Parenting is much more intense now that it has been in the past.

• Parents hover constantly -- chaperoning play dates, etc. No longer can you let your kid roam the neighborhood without someone calling CPS on you. What is a neighborhood these days anyways? People don’t know their neighbors like they used to.

  

  (chart from Pew Research)

Anyways, if you feel guilty of not spending enough focused time with your children, know that you’re doing an incredible amount of work — much more than moms in the same position did 40 years ago. And if there’s any way you can trade doing less — less housework, less hovering, less logistics — for more joy — more time with your spouse, more time to connect with your community — the kids will still be alright. ❤️

Footnote for dads: Adding together “market work” and “non-market work” — meaning, work in the home — married dads and moms work the same number of hours. However, that’s increased by nearly an hour per day for moms, and over half an hour a day for dads since 1965. So yes, dads are more involved now than ever, and to accommodate this they are working slightly less and giving up some leisure time.

Finally, shoutout to my little reading buddy, pictured at the SF Commons where I did most of my reading with friends.

For more joyful parenting events and content, follow us on Meetup.com, Twitter, or Instagram

[social media thumbnail courtesy of Ketut Subiyanto, creative commons licensed]

Other family-friendly establishments:

• Costco at 10th and Harrison. The shopping carts have seats for 2 kids, and the manager made the ground floor bike racks (beside the long pedestrian ramp) more accessible for family cargo bikes when we asked.

Manny's restaurant has had a diaper change station for a long time and we think it's a great example of a beautiful kid friendly bathroom!

Email template

Ask your favorite places to add a change table, and let us know if they say yes!!

Hi,

We really enjoyed visiting [establishment] the other day with baby [baby’s first name]!

I noticed you didn’t have a changing table in the bathroom [if there are several bathrooms, describe which bathroom would best work for a changing table, for instance “all-gender downstairs bathroom”]. It would be really helpful for my parent friends and I if you could install one! They cost 150 dollars and last for years. And they're very easy to install!

On behalf of San Francisco parents, thank you for considering my request!

Kind regards,

[Your name]